BARUG NewsOctober 2002
This month's meeting...
The October meeting will take place at the usual venue and at the usual time of 1930, on Wednesday 30 October. This month our speaker will be Dr. Nat Queen of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Birmingham University, and the title of his presentation will be 'Encryption and Security Software - theory and practice'. The Internet explosion of the last 10 years has opened up many exciting possibilities for users to exploit the amazing information source available. However, it also offers opportunities to the less scrupulous to exploit the user in return, whether by intercepting electronic communications, or by invading a private computer for nefarious purposes. Dr Queen's talk should explore some of the reasons why all of us should know how to protect our privacy and defeat interlopers. Governments have not been slow to recognise the possibility of citizens being able to talk freely using strong encryption which even the Government cannot easily break, and have introduced new laws to limit this civil liberty: it will be interesting to hear Dr Queen's view of such moves! Nat Queen's site, with dowloads for various anti-snooping programs, is: http://web.bham.ac.uk/N.M.Queen/ The next RISC OS Show will be the SE Show in Guildford at the start of November. Just for once it promises to be an interesting Show, with possible appearances by the RISC Station portable, the Omega and the new Castle machine announced within the last few days, the Iyonix. Hopefully, software developers will be bringing out new versions of their products to meet the possibilites posed by the new machines. If you cannot attend the Guildford Show (and I cannot), the Midlands Show will be held about a month later at the Motorcycle Museum near the NEC in Birmingham.
Other stuff...Last call for the non-RPC machines from a Somerset school. I have machines reserved from Mark, Stuart and Peter: any left after the next meeting will be given away to the charity stall at one of the next few Shows. They are offered on a first come, first served basis. These machines are essentially free, although I hope that recipients would make a donation which I can pass back to the school in question. Some of the machines have security markings. Machines available are: Several Acorn A7000+ without hard discs, with network cards. (The solution to my problem was not the A7000+, but a memory SIMM which I had added. Apparently A7000+'s don't like FPM memory and require EDO. The memory card I had spare was FPM...) One Acorn A7000 with a network card + a faulty hard disc. Several Acorn A3020s Two Acorn A5000s Two nearly new AKF60 Monitors. Mice and keyboards also available for most machines. Two 'User Guides' for RISC OS 3.5/3.6 Get in touch with me if interested (0117 913 1216 office, 0117 931 1829 evenings).
Finally...If you have suggestions for items to be included, or items to sell/items wanted, or need advice, please email me or contact me by phoning the office on the number above. See you at the meeting next week! Steve |